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Kent, a former television news anchor who was appointed environment minister in early 2011, immediately pushed the idea that "ethical oil" from Canada is far preferable to crude from OPEC nations with dubious human rights records.

A message from Britain's high commission (embassy) in Ottawa on January 7, 2011 summarized Kent's message as: "it may be dirty oil, but at least it's not bloody oil".

For an associate professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College, he sure doesn't spend much time talking about the possible role of the US in these matters. I would have preferred a little less emphasis on Thucydides and a bit more on the implications of the US-Philippines mutual defense treaty that he mentions in only one sentence.

I'm not defending China here by any means, but does the author really think that having US behind them doesn't play some role in encouraging Filipino assertiveness? I'd much rather have read a prescriptive analysis of the situation in the South China Sea, of possible future trajectories for naval encounters among China, its neighbors, and the US, and of methods to avoid escalation.

15th May – Earlier today, following the decision taken on 23 March 2012 by the Council of the European Union to allow the EU Naval Force to take disruption action against known pirate supplies on the shore, EU forces conducted an operation to destroy pirate equipment on the Somali coastline.http://www.eunavfor.eu/2012/05/eu-na...-on-shoreline/

It is getting late. Perhaps due to the November elections, the United States has been tolerant - or else is calculating what would be the right moment. At any rate, that moment seems to have arrived. The time has come for taking a hand in what is happening in Mexico. The evidence?: The first warning was a declaration asserted a few months back that we are a high risk country. The second was that series of visits, which indicated that a climax has been reached: Mrs. Napolitano, the CIA director, a deputy defense secretary, the House majority leader and six of his colleagues, and Vice President Biden.

This was no coincidence: no such thing exists among people like this. All of them delivered much the same message in their speeches: we are very concerned about Mexico. A number of new phrases were coined: “high intensity delinquency” (HID) and “transnational criminal organizations” (TCO). It is worth remembering that wars are not only military or police actions. Among its non-military forms, there are political, commercial, financial, and psychological wars, media wars, subversive wars, etc. Which one might be applied to us?

Historically, in their eyes, our country has evolved from “their backyard” into an inconvenient neighbor, and hence, a danger to their domestic security. We are a neighbor regarded as without the capacity to control its destiny. They cannot tolerate that. They have a very clear identity, historically, currently and for the future. They will not tolerate a threat from across their indefensible southern border. And they are already extremely disturbed about a criminal invasion and migration.

They are distressed about how petty, medium and major criminal activity originating from Mexico is taking root in their cities. They have a historic doctrine that they define themselves by and will not abandon: Manifest Destiny. We don’t fit into that definition - there is no room for us in it - and they will ensure that we don’t get in the way. In days gone by this took the form of territorial appropriation, whereas today there are other methods of imposition and subjugation.

Manifest Destiny, formulated in the middle of the 19th century (By John L. O'Sullivan of the Democratic Review, July 1845), also had British Oregon in its sights, and revealed an expansionist doctrine that coincided with a nascent Mexican state with little strength. It is true that we were robbed; it is also true that we were not yet a consolidated nation capable of self-government.

What is so unfortunate is that looking back at our history, keeping in mind the changing circumstances; we have to face the fact that we have not evolved enough. In the past this was shown in the case of U.S. support for President Francisco I. Madero and Pancho Villa during our first revolution, and then in the bloody intervention by U.S. Ambassador Henry L. Wilson, who masterminded a regime change and the second revolution. U.S. Ambassador John Gavin brought to bear the terrible pressure Reagan envisioned to prepare Mexico for entry into narco-politics. Let us not forget that in November 1986, they threatened to close the border and enforce the Simpson Rodino Act to expel more than 2 million of undocumented immigrants. Today, we are just as weak.

The U.S. right remains anti-Mexico, and will be more so for the foreseeable future. They despise us. We used to be a nuisance, but now our lack of maturity, strength and effectiveness in controlling the future of the nation, which affects us both, terrifies them. We are being studied by the CIA (The CIA handbook for Mexico), and think tanks like Woodrow Wilson Center and Georgetown University. We are a topic of investigation for the U.S. Army War College and Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, under the umbrella of U.S. National Defense University, as well as the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism, a renowned think tank the mission of which is to help the government and the public understand the nature and magnitude of terrorist threats against the United States and formulate responses.

Compared to other nations, Mexico cannot under any circumstances be considered a well-organized country. That is true in every field, especially for those that at the moment interest them most: the tandem of politics-security and justice-law enforcement. We don’t pass the test, our score is very low, and this solidifies the legitimacy of their fears. So what will be the updated version of the designs of [President] Polk and [U.S. Minister to Mexico] Joel Poinsett, of the Texas War, the Invasion of 1847, or the bombardment of Veracruz and the Ten Tragic Days? The November U.S. elections seem to have offered a sort of détente. And after that? No form of preventive war can be ruled out.

*Jorge Carrillo Olea is a retired army general and former governor of the state of Morlos

Heh, here's an idea Jorge -- fix the problem. Mexico is effectively a failed state unless it can deal with these modern feudal warlords.

The US wouldn't go to war against Mexico as a country. Jorge stupidly conflates the idea in his rant which makes me wonder what his motives are ... but they might go after "transnational crime gangs" wherever they are located.

I think that what Jorge was trying to say was that the reason why Mexico is the way it is today is because the united States has systematically tried to keep it from forming a secure and coherent government, as it would go against US interests to have a powerful country on the US's southern border. And likewise, to the American right Mexico (and Mexicans) have always been a threat.

And historically it's true, since Mexico's independence, the United States repeatedly attacked and undermined it's nascent government.

He also seems to, quite rightly, see that Mexico's problems are internal in nature, but he also, quite rightly, sees that many of the historic reasons for those problems originate in Mexico's relationship with the United States. Even the Drug Wars is largely fueled by money and weapons coming from the United States. If Mexico didn't border the USA, it would likely be a lot better off.

You could point at and contrast the US's other neighbour, Canada, but when Canada was a nascent state, it had the protection the most powerful country in the world, Britain, and was able to develop due to the security it provided. Mexico never had that luxury. Unlike Canada, Mexico also doesn't share any anglophone heritage.